Pia Saves the Day (Elder Races #6.6)(23)

Being that it was another one of those complicated concepts and all, and best appreciated in context.

She should say something to lighten the mood. She should reach for the gentle, pragmatic way with which she had responded to his traumatized reaction at the site of the accident.

But her pragmatic side was worn out. It had gotten its ass kicked over the last two days. All of a sudden, she didn’t have any more coping ability left, and even though she tried to stop the tears from coming, her damn eyes sprang a leak.

Her voice wobbled, and her mouth shook. “That’s just it—you don’t have any of those memories anymore that make me yours.”

If anything, he looked even more furious. “What happened to ‘I’m in your bones’?”

“Well, I want it to be true, but I don’t know that it is, do I? And I’m t-tired.”

“Stop that,” he demanded. “Stop.”

He cupped her face. Despite the roughness of his tone, his hands were infinitely gentle as he wiped the paths of her tears with both thumbs.

Belatedly she realized he was ordering her to stop crying, and a hiccup of laughter broke out of her. It quickly twisted into something else.

“I thought you were dead,” she sobbed. “I stood in front of that horrible pile of rock and thought you were dead, and all I wanted to do was crawl under that pile to join you.”

His hard features turned stricken. The world tilted as he scooped her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom.

He laid her on the bed and came down over her, pinning her with his heavy body. She craved his weight. Gripping the back of his head, she dug her fingers through his silky black hair, holding on to him tightly.

His mouth came down on hers, stopping her uncontrolled flood of words.

Hardened lips slanted over hers, and his tongue plunged into her mouth. There was no finesse, no coaxing. This was a taking, and she reached for it with all of her greedy heart, kissing him back with everything she had inside of her. All the love, all the desire.

Bunching his fists in the bedspread on either side of her head, he thrust a heavy, muscled thigh between hers. The hard weight of his erection lay against her pelvis, and she reached for it, caressing the broad, velvet head with one shaking hand.

He hissed into her mouth, and his hips pushed against hers rhythmically.

She pushed back, matching his rhythm. Pulling his mouth from hers, he rose onto his knees and shredded the clothes from her body.

When she was completely naked, he froze. The quality of his stillness made her pause, and she searched his expression.

He was staring at her.

Their bedroom lay in shadows. The only illumination came from the moonlight shining in through the windows, and from her.

The pearly luminescence shone from every inch of her. It had been a part of her since birth. It served no purpose. Like the color of her hair, or her eyes, it simply was. Often she had been exasperated with it, and sometimes fearful for what it gave away about her nature.

It was the most dangerous fact of her existence, the most likely thing to betray her. She could never let down her guard or relax her cloaking spell, unless she was absolutely sure she was in a private, safe place.

All of that melted away in the face of the wonder in Dragos’s expression. With one hand, he touched the swelling curve of her breast, circling the pink jut of her nipple with the tips of his callused fingers.

With the other hand, he stroked the curve of her slender waist and the swell of her hip. The golden curls at the juncture of her thighs grew damp with the full, sharp ache of desire.

She never realized how empty she was until she was with him. Then the emptiness pierced her, and he was the only one who could ease the ache.

“You’re the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen.” His words were barely audible.

Grasping his large, hard penis in one glowing hand, she stroked his length and whispered, “You’re the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen too.”

His powerful frame was bound with heavy muscles. He was a dark, shadowy figure in the moonlit room, the bulk of his body defined by even darker shadows—the silken black hair sprinkled across his broad chest and arrowing down to his groin, the ripple of his abdominals and biceps as he crawled over her, the long indentation of flesh at his hips.

He didn’t stop until he caged her with his body, pausing on his hands and knees over her. It was a dominant, possessive posture, and she loved it. Running her hands hungrily over him, she touched his flat, male ni**les and petted the sprinkle of hair on his chest, following the path it made down to his groin.

His heavy, thick erection hung down to her, and underneath it, his sac had drawn tight. She circled the base of his penis and stroked his testicles, intending to slide down the bed between his legs and take him in her mouth, but he had other plans.

Taking her by the chin, he tilted her face up to his, making her look at him as he parted her legs and settled between them. His gaze burned with incandescence.

He said softly, “You are mine. You are always going to be mine. It doesn’t matter what came before, the only thing that matters is what is now and going forward. There will never be anyone else for you. Only me. Me.”

A part of her marveled at the strange emphasis he put on those words, but it was overwhelmed by the huge tide of other feelings. Gladness, fierce joy and gratitude were foremost among them.

“Of course I am. I always have been, I always will be.”